The advantages and disadvantages of Art History to Life: Alois Riegl ...

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problem went far beyond the terms of the previous debate. He not only helped to put the final nail into the coffin that was historicism at the Museum, but in doing so, he also challenged the basic presuppositions of the institution and the scholarly culture of art history in Vienna and beyond. II. A history of renaissances Riegl’s lengthy essay appeared in three instalments in the Austrian Museum’s journal (Mittheilungen des österreichischen Museums für Kunst und Industrie) in early 1895. 9 It began harmlessly enough. In the first two sections Riegl, ever the historian, presented a general overview of artistic renaissances of the past. It was, after all, the goal of the Museum to foster an artistic renaissance in the present. What better way to begin than to evaluate the key events of the past? He began by examining three significant artistic renaissances in Western Europe: the Carolinginan Renaissance, the ‘proto-Renaissance’ of the twelfth century, and the Italian Renaissance. This careful analysis lasted for about twenty pages and we can summarize it by saying that on the basis of these three ‘renaissances’ Riegl concluded that a genuine renaissance contained several common elements. Regardless of their geographical or temporal distance from one another, artists and craftsmen in all three epochs shared the same qualities: a dissatisfaction with contemporary art (for one reason or another), a recognition of a superior style somewhere in the past (Roman antiquity in all three instances), and a happy confidence (without awe) in their ability to draw from this source and adapt it for contemporary use. Riegl called this last quality the unbefangene Auge—the unfettered eye. Renaissance artists, whether from the ninth, twelfth, or fifteenth century, all turned to the past for inspiration, but did not let the past dominate their present: ‘With their gazes trained steadily forward, the artists of all three Renaissances ... never considered it necessary or important to restore the styles of the past.’ 10 For a genuine renaissance to occur, Riegl concluded, the artist must adapt, not copy, the past in a spirit of confidence and joy. Freedom from history was a common characteristic of renaissance artists and adaptation was their goal. Curators at the Museum for Art and Industry believed this to be true about themselves, (they ‘adapted’ but did not copy the Italian Renaissance designs, for example), but Riegl was not so sure. For him, there was really no national difference between the Germans and his colleagues at the Museum. In both locations their shared reliance on historicism ruined the naïve relationship to the past necessary for a true renaissance. His conclusion was provocative: Everyone had been wrong about how to effect a renaissance in contemporary design. Historicism in the applied arts had universally failed to produce an artistic renaissance: 9 Alois Riegl, ‘Über Renaissance der Kunst’, MÖM N.F. V (1895), 342-48;363-71; and 381-93. 10 Riegl, ‘Renaissance’, 369. ‘Die Künstler aller drei Renaissancen haben eben den Blick stets vorwärts gewendet gehabt, . . . und sie hielten es . . . nicht für nötig, alte, vergangene Stilweisen dem Wesen nach zu restauriren’. 4
The art of the nineteenth century has been shaped by a restless and untiring struggle and search for a higher achievement, a passionate demand for a new and original style. Modern attempts to create a new renaissance have not succeeded. A success, a completely unmitigated success involving contemporary artistic life, has remained elusive [and] . . . the nineteenth century has failed to produce any significant style of its own. 11 What had gone wrong? Why had a ‘renaissance’ not occurred in the nineteenth century? In the final section of the essay he explored these problems. III. A surfeit of art history In the third instalment, Riegl pinned the blame on his own discipline: Art history. The nineteenth century’s overall fascination with history had shifted the balance between knowledge and life, and his own colleagues—art historians—had unwittingly contributed to this state of affairs. He demonstrated how the new scholarly discipline [Wissenschaft] of art history that emerged at the end of the 18th century mediated the relationship between artists and the public, and retarded the emergence of a new, nineteenth century style. Thus institutions like the Museum for Art and Industry were partially to blame for the failure of historicism. Riegl argued that a fundamental change in modern Europeans’ relationship to the past now altered the ages-old equilibrium between knowledge and life. Art history was a symptom of this imbalance. For Riegl, the new epoch of artistic barrenness began with Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717-1768), and the modern disciplines of archaeology and art history he had engendered. 12 For Riegl, Winckelmann’s scholarly rehabilitation of Greek art and his promotion of a Greek aesthetic in the late eighteenth century created a combination of forces that altered the social role of the art historian, introduced a foreign (Greek) style to Western Europe, and ushered in the taste for historical revivals that continued throughout the nineteenth century. 13 It was therefore, the taste for all things Greek that had disrupted the equilibrium between knowledge and life in Western Europe. 14 11 Riegl, ‘Renaissance’, 343. ‘Die Kunst des 19. Jahrhunderts, . . . is ja charakterisirt durch das rastlose und unermüdliche Streben und Trachten nach einer höheren Blüthe,… durch das leidenschaftliche Verlangen nach einer besonderen eigenartigen Stilweise. Aber es ist mit diesen Bestrebungen . . . nur beim Versuchen geblieben. Eine Erfolg eine vollen, unzweifelhafte Erfolg,… haben die modernen Renaissancebestrebungen bisher nicht aufzuweisen, oder mit anderen Worten: das 19. Jahrhunder hat es bisher noch zu keinem eigenen Kunststil gebracht’. 12 J.J. Winckelmann, Geschichte der Kunst des Altertums (1763-68), translated by G. Henry Lodge, History of Ancient Art, New York: Ungar Publishing, 1968. For a brief discussion of Winckelmann, the origins of art history, and his idiosyncratic interpretation of Greek antiquity see Gert Schiff, German Essays on Art History, New York: Continuum Publishing, 1988, xi-xvi. 13 For a discussion of philhellenism in German culture, see Suzanne L. Marchand, Down from Olympus Archaeology and Philhellenism in Germany, 1750-1970, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996. 14 In view of German philhellenism, Riegl’s interest in Roman antiquity could also be interpreted as a counterclaim for an Austrian Identity based upon Latinity. 5
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